The traditional preparation of food is oftentimes a labour intensive procedure that requires intricate manipulations and complex maneuvers. For example, preparing food can require, variously, bending, rolling, smoothing, pinching, lifting, stirring, and moving food items or aspects thereof.
Certain food preparation operations are particularly conducive to automation. For example, mechanical mixers and food processors can help reduce the manual effort required to mix and process ingredients. Conveyor belts may be employed, for example, to move items from one location to another.
Other food preparation operations are more complex, and accordingly, more complex machines may be required in order to perform such operations. The preparation of a croissant is one such example. While mixers and other standard machines may be used to prepare the dough and to shape the dough into a tubular shape, a croissant is typically crescent shaped, and in some circumstances, the tips of the croissant are made to overlap or be connected.
There are existing methods of shaping a croissant. For example, one method involves carrying tubular croissants on a conveyor, having such tubular croissants engage with a vertical piston to stop its forward motion, and using specially positioned rollers to bend the tips of the croissant together. This method is, however, very dependent upon the accuracy of the initial placement of the individual piece. If the initial placement of the croissant is incorrect or unexpected, the resulting shape of the croissant is non-optimal. More generally, the motion of bringing together the tips of a croissant, and potentially overlapping such tips, is a complex maneuver not readily possible to effect using simple machines and operations.
Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus for shaping a croissant which is intended to assist with eliminating or alleviating some of all of the aforementioned problems associated with the prior art approaches.